China ranked first in the world for online retail trade

Internet has been the biggest boon to China, contributing 7% GDP to the country's economy.

Dec 17, 2015 17:04 IST

The period from January to October, witnessed China clinching the world no 1 spot for online retail trade, according to the "Internet Development in China over the Last Two Decades" report, which was published on Tuesday.

The report was published prior to the World Internet Conference to be held in Wuzhen, China, from 16-18 December, according to the people.cn website.

The total number of netizens in China reached an estimated figure of 668 million â€” the world's largest online population. "The four Chinese companies which made it to the list are Alibaba, Tencent, JD.Com and Baidu," said head of Chinese Academy of Cyberspace, Yang Shuzhen.

China's online retail sales skyrocketed at 2.8 trillion yuan in 2014, as reported by the en.people website. But the figures have more than doubled in 2015, with total transaction reaching 2.95 trillion yuan.

In the month of November, an online shopping sale was conducted by Alibaba which recorded a sale of 91.2 billion yuan, according to the report.

Internet has been the biggest boon to the Chinese economy, contributing 7% to the GDP.

According to statistics, the number of people who shop online now is 307 million.